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the Mall. Iā€™ll be there sharp, remember; you wonā€™t go back on me, Lily?ā€

But to Miss Bartā€™s relief the repetition of her promise was cut short by the opening of the box door to admit George Dorset.

Trenor sulkily yielded his place, and Lily turned a brilliant smile on the newcomer. She had not talked with Dorset since their visit at Bellomont, but something in his look and manner told her that he recalled the friendly footing on which they had last met. He was not a man to whom the expression of admiration came easily: his long sallow face and distrustful eyes seemed always barricaded against the expansive emotions. But, where her own influence was concerned, Lilyā€™s intuitions sent out threadlike feelers, and as she made room for him on the narrow sofa she was sure he found a dumb pleasure in being near her. Few women took the trouble to make themselves agreeable to Dorset, and Lily had been kind to him at Bellomont, and was now smiling on him with a divine renewal of kindness.

ā€œWell, here we are, in for another six months of caterwauling,ā€ he began complainingly. ā€œNot a shade of difference between this year and last, except that the women have got new clothes and the singers havenā€™t got new voices. My wifeā€™s musical, you knowā ā€”puts me through a course of this every winter. It isnā€™t so bad on Italian nightsā ā€”then she comes late, and thereā€™s time to digest. But when they give Wagner we have to rush dinner, and I pay up for it. And the draughts are damnableā ā€”asphyxia in front and pleurisy in the back. Thereā€™s Trenor leaving the box without drawing the curtain! With a hide like that draughts donā€™t make any difference. Did you ever watch Trenor eat? If you did, youā€™d wonder why heā€™s alive; I suppose heā€™s leather inside too.ā ā€”But I came to say that my wife wants you to come down to our place next Sunday. Do for heavenā€™s sake say yes. Sheā€™s got a lot of bores comingā ā€”intellectual ones, I mean; thatā€™s her new line, you know, and Iā€™m not sure it ainā€™t worse than the music. Some of ā€™em have long hair, and they start an argument with the soup, and donā€™t notice when things are handed to them. The consequence is the dinner gets cold, and I have dyspepsia. That silly ass Silverton brings them to the houseā ā€”he writes poetry, you know, and Bertha and he are getting tremendously thick. She could write better than any of ā€™em if she chose, and I donā€™t blame her for wanting clever fellows about; all I say is: ā€˜Donā€™t let me see ā€™em eat!ā€™ā€Šā€

The gist of this strange communication gave Lily a distinct thrill of pleasure. Under ordinary circumstances, there would have been nothing surprising in an invitation from Bertha Dorset; but since the Bellomont episode an unavowed hostility had kept the two women apart. Now, with a start of inner wonder, Lily felt that her thirst for retaliation had died out. ā€œIf you would forgive your enemy,ā€ says the Malay proverb, ā€œfirst inflict a hurt on him;ā€ and Lily was experiencing the truth of the apothegm. If she had destroyed Mrs. Dorsetā€™s letters, she might have continued to hate her; but the fact that they remained in her possession had fed her resentment to satiety.

She uttered a smiling acceptance, hailing in the renewal of the tie an escape from Trenorā€™s importunities.

XI

Meanwhile the holidays had gone by and the season was beginning. Fifth Avenue had become a nightly torrent of carriages surging upward to the fashionable quarters about the Park, where illuminated windows and outspread awnings betokened the usual routine of hospitality. Other tributary currents crossed the mainstream, bearing their freight to the theatres, restaurants or opera; and Mrs. Peniston, from the secluded watchtower of her upper window, could tell to a nicety just when the chronic volume of sound was increased by the sudden influx setting toward a Van Osburgh ball, or when the multiplication of wheels meant merely that the opera was over, or that there was a big supper at Sherryā€™s.

Mrs. Peniston followed the rise and culmination of the season as keenly as the most active sharer in its gaieties; and, as a looker-on, she enjoyed opportunities of comparison and generalization such as those who take part must proverbially forego. No one could have kept a more accurate record of social fluctuations, or have put a more unerring finger on the distinguishing features of each season: its dullness, its extravagance, its lack of balls or excess of divorces. She had a special memory for the vicissitudes of the ā€œnew peopleā€ who rose to the surface with each recurring tide, and were either submerged beneath its rush or landed triumphantly beyond the reach of envious breakers; and she was apt to display a remarkable retrospective insight into their ultimate fate, so that, when they had fulfilled their destiny, she was almost always able to say to Grace Stepneyā ā€”the recipient of her propheciesā ā€”that she had known exactly what would happen.

This particular season Mrs. Peniston would have characterized as that in which everybody ā€œfelt poorā€ except the Welly Brys and Mr. Simon Rosedale. It had been a bad autumn in Wall Street, where prices fell in accordance with that peculiar law which proves railway stocks and bales of cotton to be more sensitive to the allotment of executive power than many estimable citizens trained to all the advantages of self-government. Even fortunes supposed to be independent of the market either betrayed a secret dependence on it, or suffered from a sympathetic affection: fashion sulked in its country houses, or came to town incognito, general entertainments were discountenanced, and informality and short dinners became the fashion.

But society, amused for a while at playing Cinderella, soon wearied of the hearthside role, and welcomed the Fairy Godmother in the shape of any magician powerful enough to turn the shrunken pumpkin back again into the golden coach. The mere fact of growing richer at

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